When his mind grew too loud sometimes he would hear it wondering to itself: am I right for this place?

This was the place he wanted to move after graduating college. He had looked forward to it even at the end of junior year. Everybody he knew who he wanted to be like was moving out here. The only thing that stood in the way was price.

But he was young. He could have roommates. Make it work somehow. His parents had lived in a 'boring' place. He couldn't go back there... or to a place like there after he got his degree. He needed to be where the hip, young, smart people were. So that's why he had decided to move here.

Now it had been a few years. Here was no longer a romantic horizon but a reality. It reminded him of the difference between his high school imagination of what college would be and what it ended up actually being. He wondered whether life was just a series of mirages until one day you just died. Would death be a mirage too? Maybe not as scary as everybody makes it out to be.

He heard footsteps. He knew that she was up now. That she would first go to the bathroom. Wash up and then she would be out here. His coffee was now nearly empty. He would drink the remains and make another batch. For her and another for himself.